The Originals

The Books

Courtesy of the lovely Sherry, some snapshots from The Vampire Diaries signing/panel at Comic Con International on Saturday, July 25th. (Contact her at her blog or @creativesherry on Twitter for permission to post elsewhere.)

There’s been a few tentative schedules floating about for the TCA Summer Press Tour in Pasadena this year, but this info seems to be popping up in a few places now – we’ll go with it. The CW Network will feature The Vampire Diaries during its panel presentation for press writers/entertainment outlets on Tuesday, August 4th. It stands to reason that the same TVDtv crew present at Comic Con will most likely be present here as well, though we’re not 100% on that. We’ll see what we can dig up. The conference is only open to registered TCA members, but we’re sure the tweets will be flowing during the panel.

Marcos Siega and Kevin Williamson both tweeted this morning to say that episode 102 of the Vampire Diaries will be directed by John Dahl, whose work includes episodes of True Blood, Dexter and Battlestar Galactica. The producers and cast have been saying all along that the TV version of the Vampire Diaries will be much more than the romance between Stefan and Elena, and will be darker than viewers might expect. So far the choice in Marcos Siega (also known for directing episodes of True Blood and Dexter) and John Dahl as directors certainly seems to back that up.

In other TV series news, Brazilian fans will be delighted to learn that they’ll be seeing the Vampire Diaries in Brazil. VampireDiariesBr.com has let us know that the Warner Channel will be showing the series, though no actual air date has been given yet. We’ll keep you posted.

First off, let’s get something straight right now: this talk of The Vampire Diaries cast looking like they didn’t want to be there during the panel? Come on. After you film ’til 6 a.m., hop on a cross-country flight, endure a day of non-stop appearances and press (answering the same questions over and over), and there’s no sleep slotted in there anywhere, see how you feel. I’m impressed they were able to form coherent sentences, let alone smile and make a marathon run of it like they did.

And it was a marathon. My (nowhere-near-as-hectic) day started off at the Lost panel – I’m going to miss that show so hard, guys, I can’t even tell you – and while there was no appearance from Mr. Somerhalder (see above), he was there in spirit during a hilarious and poignant “In Memoriam” tribute video that highlighted the various character deaths on the show. But, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Boone fans will have something to look forward to in Lost‘s final season – with the full cooperation of Vampire Diaries executive producers Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec. As they commented during the panel, they’re Lost fans too, and friends with showrunner Damon Lindelof.

My cell reception in Hall H was crap, but somehow I managed to catch KW’s tweet that the Vampire Diaries signing at the Warner Bros. booth was happening at 1:30 p.m., not 3 p.m. as had originally been listed. I don’t know if it was bumped up due to a scheduling conflict with press or the vocal concern from a lot of fans that it was too close to the actual panel (yes, three hours is too close, trust me), but it was welcome news.

By the way, Vampire Diaries bags were everywhere all weekend, and they’re starting to pop up on eBay. I never managed to snag one, alas. I’m also told there were buttons at the WB booth but never saw them myself. I did, however, see the giant “Trio in the Grass” (as we’ve dubbed it) banner hanging from the ceiling for all to see, and that same image adorned the posters used during the signing.

If you’ve never been to Comic Con, it’s difficult to describe the size and scope of the WB booth, but it’s one of the cornerstones of the Exhibit Hall floor, and the crowd that gathers around it – especially with the constant stream of signings going on – is often ten people deep around the perimeter. After attempting to find the line for the signing and giving up, I just tried to snap as many (crappy) cell phone pics as possible to get up on Twitter immediately. Paul, Ian, Nina, Julie, Kevin, and Bob arrived about 10 minutes before the signing, hanging out on the second story and snapping photos with their phones.

If you were following my (and others’) woeful updates on Twitter this past Friday, you know that the line for Ballroom 20 was an intimidating sight to behold. Fresh off the plane and armed with a bottle of water (and guided by Paul Wesley, funnily enough), I managed to make it in just in time for the Dollhouse panel, where they screened the unaired ep “Epitaph One” – featuring Chris William Martin, who plays Zach in the Vampire Diaries pilot. Was the universe trying to tell me something?

In addition to Kevin Williamson, the TV Guide: SciFi Hot List panel featured a diverse mix of stars and showrunners from existing and upcoming Warner Bros. shows: Zachary Levi from Chuck, Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki from The Big Bang Theory, Rebecca Romijn from Eastwick, Scott Peters and Scott Wolf from V, Allison DuBois (the real-life psychic that Medium is based on), and John Cho and Marc Guggenheim of Flash Forward. The panel was moderated by Craig Tomashoff, executive editor for TV Guide Magazine.

Fortunately, KW was one of the more prominent speakers on the panel; his return to television is a big enough deal on its own, but that his new show is supernatural-based was of particular interest here. When asked what attracts him to television as a writer/creator, he talked of the medium’s “immediacy” and the ability to tell a long story that you can live with every week. “TV’s tough right now” – there’s a greater opportunity to develop the characters, and genre TV in particular has the ability to hook viewers. (And, I would add, genre TV tends to inspire intensely devoted followings – as the entire Con is a testament to.) He talked about his love for True Blood – which inspired big support from the crowd – and also name-checked The Six Million Dollar Man as the genre show he couldn’t get enough of in his youth. (Which makes me wonder if we were spot-on in wondering way back when if Elena’s mother’s maiden name of “Sommers” was a Bionic Woman reference?)

Of course the Twilight phenomenon came up and KW handled it much the same way we’ve seen the cast address it these past few months – acknowledge it, and then move on to why The Vampire Diaries is different. He seemed sincere when he said, “I’m having a good time.” We were also treated to the extended preview, which received a warm response, and Ian’s appearance onscreen brought a big cheer.

Videos of the Vampire Diaries Comic Con panel are starting to crop up around the internet now (and it looks like people had a good time!). We’re compiling a list of them for you here, and will add more to this post as we find them. If you want to be alerted to new videos being added, we’ll be tweeting about them on twitter. We’ll be adding videos at the top of the post so they each cut a chance to be featured, while older ones will be slipped under the cut.

Update: Added video from Fearnet.com, a nice set of interviews with all of the producers and cast who attended the panel.

Update 2: New video of the Comic Con TVD panel from multipleverses.com. Vee informs me it’s a good, clear and professionally shot video. Alas, it isn’t available for viewing in ‘my area’, so I can’t watch it. Apologies to those in the same boat as I am, we’ll see if we can find a version everyone can see. :)

Update 3: Added another WB.com video, this time interviewing Ian, Nina, Bob Levy, and Kevin. Kevin has some wonderful things to say about L.J. Smith – very cool. Embeds are being mercurial, but you can view TVD footage at 1:54 in clip 24 on the WB’s Comic Con site.

Update 4: 5:25 mins of Nina, Paul, Ian and Kevin talking about the characters, Elena discovering Stefan’s secret, the Boone returning to Lost thing, the sex thing and Stefan and Damon’s rivalry. And it’s a video that everyone can view this time – hurrah!

Update 5: Thanks to the WB, we now have YouTube videos for the two videos posted earlier. They are shiny and viewable to everyone now!

The Vampire Diaries cast and crew presence on Twitter just keeps growing! Zach Roerig (who plays Matt Donovan) can be found @zgeorge222, and Ian Somerhalder (Damon Salvatore, of course) has set up shop @iansomerhalder1 (thanks to the folks over at MediaBlvd for helping confirm – yes, it’s really him, and he’s obviously in the process of reclaiming his name from a Twitter squatter, so here’s hoping he’s able to drop the “1” soon). We eagerly await others to succumb to Twitter’s siren call – kinda makes the wait ’til September a bit easier, no?

So there’s this little event called Comic Con International happening in San Diego this week. The American half of Vampire-Diaries.net (that’s me!) will be there Friday afternoon through Sunday to stand in a lot of lines, stand in even more lines, and chug bottled water at every opportunity. It will be awesome.

Oh, and there’s Vampire Diaries stuff going on as well! Check out the full schedule. I’m sure there will be lots to say about the pilot screening, the Q&A, the laughter, the tears (guessing there will be screaming, too)… We’re rocking this trip in a completely last-minute, take-it-as-it-comes way and, hey, if we’re not having fun, we’re doing it wrong, right? This ain’t Vanity Fair.

Fair warning: If you follow us on Twitter (@tvdnews), please know that we’ll be very active on Friday and especially Saturday (the day of the Vampire Diaries panel). In addition to my tweets, Red will be up at some ridiculous UK hour to re-tweet others’ commentary and posting other interesting tidbits that come across the radar from San Diego. We’ll be making use of the #sdcc and #tvd hashtags if you want to follow the conversation that way. (Sorry, #vampirediaries eats up way too many characters.) We’ll also have a static blog post up that we’ll update throughout the weekend with news, links, etc.

Speaking of other interesting tidbits – that’s where YOU come in. If you’re going to the Con, we’d love for you to share your photos and video, your thoughts, and anything else you feel like tossing our way. You can @tvdnews on Twitter, drop us a line at cc [at] vampire-diaries [dot] net, or even leave comments here in the blog. This is TVDtv’s pop culture coming out party – they’ll be face to face with the fans (which is what Comic Con is all about) for the first time. It’s kind of a big deal, yeah? Let’s document it for posterity.

Entertainment Weekly has a little Vampire Diaries snippet in their upcoming Comic Con preview issue (due out on the 24th of this month). Thanks to Adrienne, we have a scan of the article with a picture of Nina Dobrev in the foggy graveyard. It doesn’t tell us anything we haven’t already known for a while now and, sadly, it doesn’t give us anything really juicy. Though we’re willing to admit that we’re still stuck on those promo images from yesterday, so pretty much everything pales in comparison right now. However, it’s good to see the emphasis on the Vampire Diaries not being Twilight for television where a wider audience can see it. We’re also kind of tickled by the sentence describing the Vampire Diaries as “addictive novels”. Maybe that will entice a few more people to pick the books up and see what all the fuss is about?

A Visitor's Guide to Mystic Falls is an anthology of essays that brings together today’s best YA writers of the supernatural to talk about the Vampire Diaries' first season, from the characters to the storyline, the magic and the town. Edited by Red & Vee. Due October 19th.

Go deep into the heart of Mystic Falls with this episode-by-episode look at the first season of The Vampire Diaries. Love You to Death: The Unofficial Companion to The Vampire Diaries is the essential guide to the show.

Stefan’s Diaries tells the story, as depicted on The Vampire Diaries television show, of the love triangle that would change the Salvatore brothers’ lives forever. This trilogy offers new insight into the wildly popular TV series and the epic love story that turned devoted brothers into mortal enemies. The first book, Origins, is due for publication on November 2nd, 2010. Find out more...

Vampire-Diaries.net was founded on the 21st February 2009. It is a fansite and not affiliated in any way with L.J. Smith, HarperCollins, Alloy Entertainment, the CW Network, Warner Bros. Television, CBS Television Studios, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Outerbanks Entertainment, Bonanza Productions or the cast and crew of the Vampire Diaries television series.Theme used is 'Stefan's Journal', designed by Red exclusively for Vampire-Diaries.net.